Thankful Thursday, 07/30/15

So I've just realized it's been a good six weeks since I even considered doing a Thankful Thursday post -or any actual blogging, for that matter. That does not seem possible! I have several post ideas in mind, but we'll have to see if I can manage my time well enough to get around to them! First, though, I want to share some of the awesome things that we have been up to the past month, and then my thankful list for today :).

Early last month, we gave our room a complete redecorating, which included Mama spray painting furniture for hours (upon hours) for us. It turned out sooo cute, and I am so glad that that is finally done :).

And then, we had a WONDERFUL visit from some WONDERFUL people!!! Mama made a friend at her church when she was a teenager, and kept in touch with her off and on through the years. This friend has eight children, and the oldest, Katie, has been my best friend and accountability partner for several years. BUT, we had never actually met in person! It finally worked out that she was able to fly down here with her younger sister, Danielle, and we had such an awesome time! We were able to go to Jamestown and go blueberry picking while they were here, which was fun :). The little boys had never been blueberry picking before, but both of them were picking like old pros by the time we left- Josiah was adorable! The whole week was wonderful, and Katie and Danielle are so precious :). It was sad to send them back home, haha!

We were able to go to Yorktown a few days later. We got to see the Moore house, the battlegrounds, Bacon street... haha ;)... and we walked down to a Ben and Jerry's shop! It was a really nice day... my favorite part, though, may have been carrying Peter back to the car. Man, that little guy was chatty and goofy that evening, haha! It was hilarious!

Soon after that, we all packed up and headed down to SC :)! We got to see our family down there, and they had lots of fun planned into the week. Grandpa took us geocaching, Aunt Tessa and Aunt Amber took us to some art galleries, and Grandma got a kit to make beeswax candles that we enjoyed making up, and we also got to spend one night at Gramma's, as well :). We stopped in to see some dear friends on the way home... and, as has often happened before, their older girls "decided" to see if they could "trick Daddy into driving off with them". I followed along in good fun, because it's never worked before... When it appeared to be working, I started panicking, haha, and earned myself the title of traitor ;), before finding out that it had all been discussed between our parents beforehand, and they were actually coming home with us for a few days! We had a great time :). We  held a couple hymn-singings, which was delightful :). We also got to watch the new movie "Alone Yet Not Alone", and I've been singing that song ever since... I need to either quit it or learn the whole thing, haha! I'm starting to drive myself nuts singing only half of it ;).

It was wonderful to get to visit with so many of our loved ones :). Now we are getting back into the swing of school, and I am trying to knock some stuff off of my two-year-old to-do list :P... I FINALLY got a box of papers cleaned out yesterday! Now I have another one to do today... haha :). I save too much...

And that's the very short version of all that has been going on. If I had been a consistent blogger, you would have got more detail as it happened, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be one of my strong points when I have stuff that would make interesting blog posts, haha ;). But I think now I am going to share some of the things that I am thankful for this week, and then I'm going to go get busy :).

So, this week I am thankful for...

~The book of James, which we just finished up a study on.
~The smile of pleasure and satisfaction the older gentleman at church gave me as he handed me tomoatoes grown from his own garden :).
~People who are willing to put aside their time to give to others.
~Tori's encouragement to keep practicing at learning piano chords. Despite her laughing at me, she does seem to be tolerating my terribly faulty notes better than I had hoped when I first looked up to see her sorrowfully staring at me in disbelief the first day I sat down at the piano. It had been four years, I think, since I actually attempted any piano playing, hahaha...
~An encouraging phone call from a friend just when I needed it.
~Hugs.
~Making fresh bread.
~Randomly singing dramatic nothings with Tori... and then Bethi enters in with a totally exaggerated squawk for humorous affect, and nobody can sing anymore because we're laughing so hard, haha.
~Josiah's calling for me... melted my heart! He is such a precious little guy <3.
~Blueberry crisp.
~That it looks like the sun will be out today! It has been rainy here the past few days, and though I love a nice, quiet, drizzly day, several in a row makes my motivation go out the window -I can't function in the dark!
~Mornings complete with bible study, coffee, cleaning up, breakfast, blogging, practical conversations with Peter, and not knowing whether to laugh or think "that was obvious" at all of the puns Tori is reading off to me, haha. And Peter is sitting across from me at this moment with such cute bedhead, haha.

I hope each of you have a great day and a blessed week :)!!!

50 Randomly Generated Facts About Me...

 Don't ask me where this post came from. I randomly started it three minutes after thinking about it, which I almost never do, about a week ago, and have been slowly added to it ever since. I figured some of you might have fun reading through it, so... here you are, haha! 50 facts about me...

• I am very good at remembering random conversations and events in great detail, but I often can't remember things like what day of the week it is.
• I am perpetually cold. I might complain about being cold even in 70 degree weather. Because of this, I will wear long sleeves all year round. Not every day, but I have been known to wear long sleeves in summer. And I love coffee at least as much for the heat in my hands as for the actual taste. 
• I have read the book of Romans about sixty times as of 2015. 
• I hate math, but geometry is getting a very reluctant okay from me. 
• My sister has described my life as one big letter or email. And I'm okay with that. 
• I can rarely spell "that" right the first time on the keyboard. My fingers usually get ahead of me and it turns out as "taht" before I edit my writings. 
• I love animals.
• Each crafting technique I come across is almost sure to be my favorite. Until I learn a new one ;).
• I love children's books :).
• Apparently I talk in my sleep. Most memorably about cats. Which makes sense, since about 95% of my dreams run on an outline of running into family or friends randomly, or taking care of animals. It's really weird.
• I love bright colors! They make me smile, and I use them whenever I can.
• My favorite season is most definitely fall, though when I was younger I used to say I thought it was spring. Poor, poor deceived me... ;)
• I do not like different foods touching each other on my plate.
• I love to try to multi-task... I am not very good at it.
• I also love lists, especially to-do lists.
• I prefer snail mail to email. But who doesn't?
• My favorite book of the bible is Romans. My favorite chapter is Romans 12. I can't pick a favorite verse, haha.
• My favorite book of the Old Testament is Ruth. 
• My favorite Psalm is 147.
• I don't like being the one to start conversations. To help with this problem, I just never shut up, so the conversation is always open ;)...
• When I was younger, I wanted to live in a cabin and do all my own... everything, haha... just like Laura Ingalls. I would still love a farm. But I'm realizing I might need to have something a bit bigger than a cabin, due to how much I love having people over. And I want a huge porch like my Granny's. With chairs to sit and talk in. With people, of course. I wouldn't talk to myself... Okay, yes I would talk to myself. Which leads me to the fact that...
•  I often keep a running commentary with myself, especially in the mornings. "Shush! You so loud. Bri, seriously, why must you keep slamming cupboards? I want coffee. Okay, where is my book? WOULD YOU BE QUIET?". The quieter I try to be, the louder I end up getting.
• I love being up early, but I hate getting up early. 
• I find personalities extremely interesting, heehee. 
• When I was little I jammed my bedroom door so hard slamming it that my Mom had to remove the planks to get me out...
• I love teacups and stationary.
• And candles, though I don't burn them often, because I hate thinking one day they will run out, hahaha.
• The more I like a book, the longer it takes me to actually read it. I find myself wanting to wait until I have the perfect time to read it with the perfect cup of coffee, and so I just don't.
• And once I don't read a book for a month or more, I feel like I have to start it over before I read anymore. And unless I have read the first book of the series within the past three months, I feel like I have to read the first book again before going to the second (third... fourth...). My progress in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy over the past two years is saddening to Tori.
• My favorite hymn is "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing". I have too many second favorites to list, though. I told a friend once, "If a hymn is my favorite, I memorize it. But, if I memorize it, it then becomes a favorite even if it wasn't when I started memorizing it."
• I am known in our family as the best loser at the game of "Trouble" ever. Given that it is a game of chance, I don't see how this works. But the whole family is shocked if I so much as come in third, let alone win.
• I love brownies.
• And I like to add chocolate chips to a bowl of ice cream.
• I have probably 20 drafts of the first 3-5 pages of an attempt at a children's chapter book, started when I was nine, stashed in my boxes upstairs. I haven't touched them in years except to get out something that is under them, but I still can't make myself throw them away. 
• I love music and singing. Regardless of this, I've never gotten past beginner piano playing, and my timing is terrible, hahaha!
• I did not come up with my own blog title, heehee :). Compliments go to Mama :). 
• I have been blogging since November 6th, 2006, though on two different blogging sites and two different blogs.
• My blogging is highly sporadic, ranging from not posting from February 2008 to March 2009, to writing 26 posts in September 2012. I think I must have been bored in 2012, hahaha!
•  I have a fear of the unknown, and of disappointing others. Give me a situation in which I combine them and I go positively nuts, haha ;).
• I consider organizing to be one of my hobbies.
• I think I would probably be okay wearing jean skirts everyday... they are like the best clothing piece, haha!
• Tori was once reading a humorous article, and told me, "I'm not sure what a Type A is, but you are most definitely one!". Hahaha!
• I can whistle a cricket chirp. It's also the only whistle I can do that actually  sounds like anything, might I add. ;)
• I love to hold people in suspense. Hehehe...
• I often get in this mood when crocheting where it seems like too much work to find someone else's pattern and tweak it to my idea of what I want, so I just start from scratch figuring it out as I go along and take most of the stitches out at least once because I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing, just what I want it to come out as. Since I'm constantly taking it out and redoing, it gets confusing to try to write out a pattern, so I usually just don't. My siblings have several items that even I will never be able to perfectly duplicate again, hahaha! 
• My favorite color is blue.
• I love watching water in a breeze. And sunshine. I need sunshine to function. I *loooove* rainy days, but I do nothing on them -they're too comfortable. Bright sun seems to help me focus. For this reason, I have a certain spot at the table that I selfishly take over whenever I do writing projects/table crafts, because it's the brightest flat surface in the house, haha :).
• I constantly run into doors and walls. C.o.n.s.t.a.n.t.l.y. Though not as much as I used to, sadly. Because it's still bad.
• I love feeling spontaneous... but I only truly enjoy it if I've prepared to be so.
• My favorite flowers are daffodils and sunflowers. I also like jasmine. Looking at that list I realized that I must have a thing for yellow flowers, heehee.

Thankful Thursday, 06/04/15

I think that Psalm 147 is so beautiful... the whole thing is worth another read, no matter how many times you have read it before :). It's one of my favorite Psalms :). This past week has included...
~Sweet Emmi Joy's birthday this past week :). She is soooo precious....

~Tori made her cake for her... Mama had no time (Emmi kept her running alllll day... and the next afternoon, too, haha!!), and so Tori took over. She and Daddy brained stormed to come up with this adorable cake...



 ~This cool little dude. Heehee :). He is a doll.... he was turning the pages of the book I was reading to the little ones the other day... I love it when they want to "help" you read to them, haha :). And I have this habit, from like as far back as when Bethi was a baby, of throwing out my arms as I say "All done" after giving a baby their last bite of food... he now does it faster than me, it is hilarious, haha!
~I'm also very thankful that he was okay last week! We thought for sure that he had broken his arm when he fell, but an x-ray showed not so much as a buckle fracture, so that was wonderful!

~Singing at the top of our lungs on the way home last night... haha :).
~"Scrabble" and "Upwards" and all those fun games that I'm pretty terrible at but are wonderfully fun, heehee.
~That we can "take everything to God in prayer".
~Josiah's delight in getting a new balloon. He is so cute dragging it around like a floating pet, hahaha...
~Reminders that God has all the details worked out, and that all he brings into our life has a purpose.
~Hugs.
~Peanuts. Haha... Bethi was reading about George Carver, and she talked about peanuts all day yesterday, hahaha. He did find an amazing amount to do with them.
~Cooking in the kitchen with Mama.
~Tori's voice talent ;)! She randomly starts doing voice impersonations all the time, and as everyone who has ever heard it can testify, it's hilarious!
~Rainy, quiet days.
~The beautiful new tables we were blessed with.
~A new book to look forward to reading :).
~All the wonderful, wonderful people we have been blessed to have brought into our life <3. Now, I'm going to go do a little bit of baking and help clean up, because we are having some of those wonderful people over for supper :). Have a wonderful Thursday!

Happy Birthday, Emmi :)

Emmi-Joy is a WHOLE "hand" today :)!!! She has been looking forward to her fifth birthday since... well, her fourth, heeheehee :).
Compared to some of the rest of us, Emmi is pretty quiet... but nevertheless, she is quite the talker! She recently memorized the Lord's prayer :)! She is also learning to read, and does awesome at writing words the way they sound. This really doesn't shock me, because she is *such* a book/word lover, and always has been. When she was a toddler, she would sit spell bound watching Mama every time she read a book to us, and she LOVES to learn new words. She shocks people sometimes by the random words she knows, and I have heard her before, upon hearing me use an unusual word, walk away slowly repeating it to herself, I suppose to make sure it "stuck" :). I call her my little owl... haha :). She planned a busy day to celebrate her birthday- full of shopping and lots of food... LOTS of food... haha :).

I <3 you, Emmi! Happy Birthday :)!!!

Thankful Thursday, 05/28/15

This week my blessings have included...

~A special outing with Mama earlier this week :).
~A blessed smoothness in geometry. Algebra has been a pain lately, so opening the next math book and finding something more understandable made me the most excited I have ever been about math, haha!
~The little girls telling me all about the trip to the library they got to take with Mommy. They brought back a lot of *pink* books, it was hilarious!
~"Mildred at Roselands", by Martha Finley.
~Tori's delight over her new sketchbook. Annnnd, it's already started its long career of public life on her blog Sketching Dreams, haha!
~An old, sturdy, metal sewing machine from our neighbor :)!
~My new adorable owl cup :).
~Watermelon.
~Psalm 51 :).
~Josiah's fascination with the optic wands "somebody" left in a bag hanging on our door. Yes, I had to look up what they were called. And yes, I find them rather intriguing myself.
~Getting to chat with my Aunt this past week :)!
~Tori's finally finding a book she had been looking for! Libraries and bookstores do not sell many classics it seems :P...
~Designs. You know, like when someone takes random circles and swirls of color and makes something gorgeous out of it... haha. That may be one of my favorite forms of artwork...
~The lavender colored dry erase board Mama got for our room :). It's something I had actually been thinking about getting/making, although I hadn't mentioned it to her yet! That was a fun little surprise :).
Rejoicing in hope,
Bri :)